Brazil's Temer announces 'intervention' in state bordering Venezuela

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Brazil's President Michel Temer arrives for a breakfast with foreign media at Alvorada Palace in Brasilia, Brazil December 6, 2018. REUTERS/Adriano Machado

SAO PAULO/BRASÍLIA (Reuters) - Brazil’s President Michel Temer said on Friday he had reached an agreement with Roraima state Governor Suely Campos for a federal “intervention” in the state that borders Venezuela.

Temer said via Twitter that he and the governor came to the conclusion that a negotiated intervention would be the best solution to “pacify” the situation in Roraima.

Waves of Venezuelan migrants have been entering the border area in recent months, seeking refuge from poverty and hunger in the neighbouring country. The thousands of refugees are straining public services and the state’s finances.

On Thursday, police officers and agents in Roraima’s prisons called for a strike protesting delays in salary payments.

“The situation in Roraima is becoming worse. We have tried ways to rescue the state with resources, but couldn’t find a legal way to do so,” President Temer told journalists after the meeting with the governor and other government officials.

“That’s why I told the governor that one way to solve the problems for now, particularly the salary situation, would be the federal intervention,” Temer said.

According to local TV broadcaster Globo, Governor-elect Antonio Denarium, who is from the same party of President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, the PSL, would be named by Temer to lead the intervention, which would end on Dec. 31.

Denarium, and all other governors, as well as Bolsonaro, take office on Jan. 1.